A Profiler's Case for Seduction(44)

“Excuse me,” he said to Richard as he unlocked the office door and disappeared inside and then closed the door behind him. Richard looked at Mark.

“Could be him,” Mark said softly. Andrew Peterson couldn’t be ruled out by his body type and size alone. Mark knocked on the door.

“Enter,” Andrew yelled through the door.

As they opened the door and stepped inside the small office, Andrew looked up from his desk, his gaze narrowing slightly as he faced the two men. He rose to his feet. “I was expecting it to be a student. Can I help you, gentlemen?”

As Richard made the introductions, Mark stared at the man who might or might not be part of the puzzle. Andrew Peterson was a nice-looking man. His blue eyes held a touch of wariness, which wouldn’t be considered unusual in the circumstances of being confronted by two FBI agents.

Andrew motioned them to two straight-back chairs in front of his desk. “We thought it was time we had a little chat with you,” Richard began as he and Mark sat down.

“About?”

“Melinda Grayson,” Mark said flatly, watching Peterson’s features carefully for tells. There was a faint flare in his eyes and his mouth tightened. The tells were barely discernible, but Mark had been trained to watch for them, to recognize them.

“Professor Grayson,” Andrew replied. “A terrible thing that happened to her, but what does that have to do with me?”

“We were just wondering who broke off the affair, you or her, or if the affair is still ongoing?” Mark went straight for the man’s jugular.

Andrew sputtered incoherently and blinked several times like an owl unexpectedly caught in the daylight. He turned his gaze from Mark to Richard and then back again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, we think you do,” Richard replied smoothly.

“We know about the affair, Mr. Peterson. What we need to know now is if it has ended or if it is still ongoing,” Mark said, his gaze pinning the man in his chair. “Or perhaps you’d feel more comfortable answering our questions down at the courthouse.”

Andrew jumped out of his chair and for an instant Mark thought he intended to run from the office. Instead he walked over to the door and closed it, then returned to his seat behind his desk, his eyes glimmering with the shame of a guilty man.

“Please, I’d much rather answer your questions here. This is rather a delicate situation.”

“Adultery is usually a delicate situation,” Richard said drily.

“So, tell us about you and Melinda,” Mark said, noting that a fine sheen of sweat had appeared just above Peterson’s upper lip.

“There really isn’t much to tell,” Andrew replied. “I knew Melinda around campus, but our paths rarely passed because we’re in different departments, housed in different buildings.”

He leaned back in his chair and stared at a photograph on his desk. Although Mark couldn’t see anything but the back of the picture frame he guessed that it was the requisite photo of Andrew’s happy, smiling family.

Andrew shook his head and instead focused his attention out the nearby window, as if unable to look at the picture while he talked about Melinda.

“The affair began about a month before she was kidnapped.” He spoke the word as if it left a nasty taste in his mouth. “About three weeks before that I found myself next to Melinda at a staff meeting for the department heads. I’d been to plenty of such meetings with her, but this time she sat next to me and was being very flirtatious. You’ve seen her, right?”

He looked back to Richard and Mark, who both nodded, and Andrew hurriedly continued, as if he’d just been waiting for somebody to ask, as if he needed to confess his sins.

“She’s smoking hot and things at home weren’t going so well. I had a harassed, nagging, exhausted wife dealing with three children under five years of age, and there was Melinda, making me feel like I was the smartest, most desirable man in the entire world.”

“And so you two began an affair,” Mark said.

Andrew gave a curt nod. “We were so careful. We didn’t email each other, didn’t leave any kind of a phone trail. We’d see each other on campus and then plan to meet up at a motel just outside of town. She was like an intoxicating addiction to me for a couple of weeks. I lost sight of everything that would be destroyed in my life if my wife or colleagues found out. I lost sight of everything that was important to me. Nothing mattered but being with Melinda.”